


Seven Years

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Family, Grace Is A Good Mom, Inspired by Music, Light Angst, Multi, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 12:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18031835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It was a big big world, but we thought we were bigger.Moments from the lives of the Hargreeves siblings.





	Seven Years

“Oh, Number Two, thank you.” He held out a small flower, dirt still clinging to the roots, to his mother. He was filthy from playing in the garden and digging up little weeds and flowers, looking for the best one for his mom. She deserved the best and prettiest flower of them all. Dad wouldn’t be too happy with that, however, so she gently ushered him inside so he could take a bath.

As they walked up to the bathroom, he could see Number Seven sitting at the bottom of the stairs, all alone. He didn’t pay her much attention other than a quick glance. Dad wouldn’t let her play with them because she was ordinary. 

He ran up so he could get the bath water running, but Mom stayed behind to talk to Seven.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” She didn’t treat her any differently than she treated any of the others. She was her daughter too and she loved her just the same. 

Seven wiped at her eyes, trying to clear up the tears that were beginning to form. Father always yelled at her whenever she cried. When Grace moved to put her arm around her, she flinched and ducked away. 

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked comfortingly. 

“I-I,” Seven looked up at her mom, the tears flowing freely, “I just want to play with the others. But Father doesn’t let me, and they all listen to him, and…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. 

Grace’s smile fell, she knew the others didn’t treat her equally or fairly. Their father didn’t permit it. Occasionally, Numbers 4, 5, and 6 would play with her, but it never lasted long before they were called away by their father.

She opened her arms to let Number Seven come to her, instead of forcing it on her. Seven quickly threw herself onto her mom, crying into her shoulder. 

“There, there. Would you like to help me make cookies?” Cookies always cheered up the children and it was a special treat to help make them because then they could eat some of the dough.

Seven’s head snapped up and she nodded vigorously and wiped away her tears.

___

He didn’t know why Dad had him go on missions. He didn’t have super strength like Luther or teleportation like Five. He couldn’t throw knives like Diego, or summon monsters from inside of him like Ben, or warp reality like Allison. All he could do was talk to the dead, and he didn’t like that at all. 

The dead didn’t like him either. They scared him, crying out and screaming at him. He hated it, hated them, hated Dad. He hated Dad the most of all because he would lock him in the dark, cold mausoleum with the dead. 

Every month, Dad would take him to the mausoleum and leave him there overnight. To “unlock his powers,” Dad said. It was bullshit. All he could do was talk to the dead, and he didn’t want to listen to what they had to say.

So, one day, he snuck out. Left the house for a few hours, nobody would notice he was missing. He found a guy on the streets. He was selling drugs, all kinds, and, for Klaus, he would give him a deal.

Klaus took him up on it. He forked over all his money, and, in exchange, he was given his first blunt. 

When Dad locked him in the mausoleum that night, he didn’t see any of the ghosts. Hear their cries. All he had was sweet, sweet relief. 

He went back to the man the next day. Then the next week, then the next, and the next.

Dad didn’t lock him up in the mausoleum anymore after that. He also didn’t talk to him or acknowledge him at all after that.

___

 

“I heard a rumor that you gave me a callback.” She said at her first audition. She wanted to be a star, famous, in the movies, on the big screen. 

And she always got what she wanted. 

Dad had called her spoiled for it, but she didn’t care. She was tired of being a hero, sharing the fame with her brothers. She wanted something of her own.

She ended up not only getting the callback but also getting the role. Allison Hargreeves in ‘Magnificent Secrets.’ It was a blockbuster success, the critics and audiences all loved it, and Allison was the star.

But it wasn’t enough. At all the interviews, everyone asked her about her brothers, if they were still fighting crimes, if they would follow her into the film industry. She had enough of it, so she snapped-

“I heard a rumor that you shut up about the Umbrella Academy, and only focused on me.” And it worked. It always worked. 

Luther told her that she should stop using her powers to just get what she wanted to like that. She didn’t care much for that either. So she leaned in closer to him, 

“I heard a-” she stopped. She didn’t want to rumor him, he was her brother. He was the only one who really knew her. 

“Luther,” she said instead, “meet me tonight in our fort.” They hadn’t met there in two years, not since her first movie. She’d done two more since and had been on a tv show. 

She didn’t want to ruin their relationship, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had pushed everyone away. The only people who truly cared about her. 

Fame, she decided, wasn’t more important than the people she loved. But old habits die hard.

___

Eudora Patch was beautiful and smart, and kind, and she cared, she truly cared. She was perfect, and Diego loved her. He also loved the way the sun would shine through the blinds on the mornings when they would sleep in and make her skin glow. He loved the way she would fidget with the pen she was holding whenever she worked on paperwork. He loved the way she would curl into his arms at night when they slept together.

But most of all, he loved watching her work. Out there, in the field, doing what she loved. Helping people. She put so much effort into her work because she loved what she did. She would smile kindly to the children who would pass her by when she walked the streets, she would listen intently to witnesses recount what they had seen, she would do everything with passion and pride. He loved that about her.

She inspired him to help as well. Sure, he had always wanted to help, hell, he had been helping people since he was a kid, he was a hero. But she was the real hero; the people she helped didn’t know who she was, they wouldn’t see her on tv or on the front cover of some magazine because she was this public figure. She did what she did because all she wanted to do was help.

He, more or less, did the same. A vigilante wouldn’t be recognized, he wore a mask. He did what he could to help. He saved people who needed saving, and he did it without being recognized. Nobody, save for a few people, like Eudora, knew who he was.

He wanted to be a hero, the real kind of hero, he wanted to do something that mattered.

___

He was Number One. The leader. He would follow orders, tell the others what to do, save the day. When everyone else had left, he’d stayed. Dad commended him for his loyalty. He continued to send him on missions because he was the best. Because he was Number One.

And he’d failed. He failed his mission. He’d gotten hurt, almost killed. 

Dad saved him, and then he sent him away. No, not sent away, he reminded himself, he was assigned another mission. To observe for threats from space. He was placed on the moon to monitor the earth and send back data. 

It was lonely on the moon, however. Just him and his thoughts. Dad never communicated with him; he said he would if there was an emergency and he was needed. 

He was never needed back on earth.

But he was a good leader, he reminded himself. Dad had said so, he’d said that he was his favorite child, that he was the only one who would listen. He’d always followed Dad’s wishes, and that’s why he was Number One.

“The best leader,” his father had told him once, “is one who knows how to listen and do as he is told. The others will follow you, you must set an example.” He recited that to himself every day for a year after he had been told. 

But what good was he as a leader, if he let one of them go missing, another die, and got himself nearly killed? What good was he as a leader, if he was on the moon, thousands of miles away from his team?

He tried not to dwell on it too much. Instead, he focused on his work. He took plenty of notes and made sure his data was as accurate as he could make it. Dad would want it that way.

___

He was so close. He was so close to coming home, he just had to wait it out for a few more years. He could almost laugh, he had been waiting for over forty years, what was two more?

He was almost sixty, his siblings never got that. But he would make sure that they did. He figured out how to stop the Apocalypse, almost. Delores had kept telling him that his equations were off, but he knew they weren’t. He just had to find a way to get back.

Everyone would go back to the way it was. Except for him. He could never go back to the way he was before he left. He could never go back to being that same child. He was old now. He had blood on his hands. He was a killer. An assassin. And a damn good one at that.

But he could go back to having a family. 

He spent nearly half a century trying to find a way to go back to them, and he could, soon. He kept telling himself that, soon. He just had to bide his time with the Commission a little bit longer.

Then he could go back and save a world that didn’t deserve to be saved but needed to be anyway. Then he could go back and see his family again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please leave a comment or kudo!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at nevermore-plutonianshore!


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